NEIL Lennon last night hit back at claims that Kristoffer Ajer will leave Celtic this summer and stressed the Parkhead club will decide when their players depart.
Ajer’s agent Tore Pedersen this week told newspapers in Norway that the centre half has attracted widespread interest and will move on at the end of the 2019/20 campaign.
However, the 21-year-old is under contract until 2022 and Lennon stated the treble treble winners will have the final say on when the defender goes.
“I’ve heard about the comments and I’m aware of it,” he said. “At the end of the day, the club will decide when players go. Not agents or players themselves.
“Kris has never made any indication he wants to leave. He’s happy here, he’s been playing very well, he’s been very consistent. I think the agent has shot himself in the foot there.
“We have him tied down to a long-term contract so we’ll decide, not anyone else. There’s not been any interest in him that I’m aware of, certainly no one has called me about him.”
Lennon also admitted that Celtic’s plans to strengthen their squad in the summer had been thrown into turmoil by the postponement of matches across Europe due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Everything is up in the air at the moment, recruitment, the lot,” he said. “I mean, who are we going to watch? All of the games are off.
“We are going to end up watching the old black and white reels of Stanley Matthews!
“It’s a disaster at the moment for all of that type of work as we’re all left twiddling out thumbs at the minute.
“There are also players out of contract in June. What happens to them? They would be free to go, I’d imagine. They might not want to play if there’s five games in June. There’s a lot of uncertainty.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel